You turn on the TV for news or hop on the net, and everybody is talking about fuel economy. The big bad villian in Detriot seems to be pumping out these humongous SUV things, that burn through sicking amounts of gasoline, and greatly pollute our atmosphere.

Let me start out... I'm not an auto executive, or have anybody to impress here, just discuss the facts of the fuel economy 'myth' that liberals are trying to pull over on us.

Passenger Car Fuel Economy is More Straightforward

The US has had the same fuel economy standard since 1985, it was 27 MPG for passenger cars which include vecihcles sub-compacts to full-size sedans, hatchbacks, station wagons, etc.

A manufacturer has to by law provide a full range of vechicles that get that when calculated all together meet that average. The idea of that standard was to set the middle point, one that would be reasonable, yet allow for a diverse fleet of vechicles.

All such vechicles must have posted on them upon the sale of them, their EPA tested fuel economy. While EPA fuel economy rarely represents actual preformance for you or their 'best' possible fuel economy preformance, it does give a general idea. You probably drive differently then the EPA (your harder on the accelerator, climb more hills, drive faster).

Every engine has a different speeds where they are most efficent, so these numbers are not super useful (but it makes it possible to see that a 14 MPG full-size pickup truck gets worst mpg then a 30 MPG sedan).

The Problem with 'Light Trucks'

'Larger' vechicles, those which are not suppostedly passenger cars and those built on light pickup truck chasis have to get on average of 23 MPG. This catagory includes things like minivans, full-size vans, sport utes (except HD ones), and of coure, pickup trucks (again, except HD trucks).

I find this to be an extremely strange catagory. Minivans (by defination) are built on car chasis (a bit long ones) with small front wheel car engines (for example, the low-end Dodge Caravans currently use the corprate-2.0l standard engine, the same one as the Dodge Neon or the 3.0l Dodge Stratus engine). I don't see anything 'truck' about them (except they are bigger). This is unlike full-size vans, which are based almost entirely on full-size pickup trucks (like the Dodge RAM).

Sport utility vechicles (or as some people like to call them, suburban assult vechicles), also can't be catagorized all as being trucks. Especially now, many SUVs are really built on unibody car chasis and use either passenger car engines or truck engines. These tend to ride lower to the road and ride smoother, and get close to car mpg. Think things like the Ford Explorer and the alike.

Fuel Efficent: By Whoses Standards?

All of today's vechicles are fairly efficent by the standards of only 30 or so years ago. The Dodge Dart, with it's slant-6 was a light drinker of slightly less then 20 MPG.

The fact is the American consumer is demanding more then they ever have. More people then ever have lots of leasure time, not to mention money. Fuel is cheap. So they buy powerful vechicles that can match their interests.

You ask, why do you need a 16 MPG Chevrolet Silverado to get to town. Parking it isn't as nearly as easy a 25 MPG Plymouth Sundance, for example. It's not nearly as damn sexy, for one reason. But there are other reasons besides sex appeal, such as towing capicity. Some of us need to tow heavy trailers, for various reasons (boat, horse trailer, snowmobile trailer, etc).

Things are Getting Better

Detroit isn't ran by idiots, even if it seems like that at times. They can see that consumers are demanding better fuel economy, and the alike, because they don't like the sting it takes out of their wallets, even when prices are cheap. Not to mention all this stuff about global warming, makes people want an efficent vechicle.

Detroit has been making much room on making it's vechicles more efficent and cleaner, witness the difference in the past 10 years when it comes to emissions and fuel economy. Yes, it's been slow, but technological improvement is slow.

Don't forget to look to 2004 for things like GM's displacement on demand standard on it's big truck engines (Vortec 6000 like stuff), and it's optional parrell hybrid designs. Stuff for it's big trucks are coming first, which makes sense as these are their most popular vechicles, not to mention some of the biggest fuel drinkers.